The Breakthrough

And this sweaty, nearsighted man with a belly so massive it practically needed its own ID tag... he belonged to a specific people: the lycanthropes. Despite his body-poCityve and far-from-Hollywood appearance, the big guy was sharp as a whip and way more open-minded than most of his peers. I could actually talk to him about the weirdness of tonight.

– Mm-hmm... Yeah… hmm... – he muttered, which didn’t exactly scream - genius,- and you might’ve thought I’d overhyped him. But I knew better.

Kim wasn’t chatty—he was thinking hard.

– Listen, Dued. Time to contact your... partner. ASAP. – He spat the words out like a dog barking. Well, that was his nature showing.

– Which one? – I asked rhetorically, already knowing who he meant. Kim and I were often on the same wavelength.

– The one. Police tricks won’t cut it here. We need a non-human perspective on this mess.

– Agreed. What will you do in the meantime, Kim?

– Send out extra patrols. Load them up with more flasks. Sweep every area near the Wall.

– And how do you plan to explain that order? – I asked.

– Say I received intel. That a spike in suspicious paranormal activity was registered in our sector. I’ll review your footage. The payment’s already in your account.

– Perfect. – I nodded and shook his firm, calloused hand—one that didn’t match the rest of his squishy exterior at all.

Time to bounce. I wasn’t thinking about money right now, or whether Antwan had started editing the concealer review episode. I hadn’t even checked my social media to answer comments or drop little hearts under them.

What I was thinking about... was how much I didn’t want to visit the woman Kim had mentioned. So I busied my mind by recalling how I’d first met the colonel.

Back in the day, Kim was the kind of cop who never shied away from field ops. He personally led strike teams into skirmishes with Them. Despite his poor health and less-than-marathon-ready physique, Kim had taken down more than a few creeps before he ended up getting -promoted- to the supernatural side himself, seven years ago.

It happened during a mission near the Wall. A massive, hairy lycanthrope had been terrorizing the district, and I was deployed with a team to neutralize it. Back then, I still occasionally worked alongside the police, so the order didn’t surprise me.

What did surprise me, though, was that the beast—rather than pouncing to rip out a throat or maul a limb—ran around Kim and gave him a weak little bite on the calf. That ruined my perfectly timed counterstrike.

We did eventually put the beast down, of course. But what the hell were we supposed to do with a bitten man? I stood there, paralyzed by indecision.

Creatures from the Obscurity never bit their victims. They didn’t eat them. They just killed them. Plain and simple. So this whole -initiation- thing?

Completely unthinkable. Oh, it was definitely him.

As if a magic wand had been waved, the picture-perfect family man, loving

father, and high-ranking police officer instantly morphed—charging straight at me with two beast legs and two human ones. I should mention: there were no grotesque bone crunches, no horror-movie fur explosions. None of that werewolf cliché garbage.

The werewolf image was just a theatrical curtain, like everything else about Them and their -costume party- forms. The real changes happened on an energy level far beyond the physical.

The newly minted monster hopped and leapt around, and when he realized I was too damn quick to catch, he turned his fury on the squad behind me— hurling flasks like cavemen throwing rocks. Back then, the cops hadn’t yet equipped flamethrowers. They just chucked the bottles by hand.

This lycanthrope was fast. Too fast. He shredded the entire team within minutes... while I just stood there, watching.

There were no memory wipe protocols back then. If there had been, I might’ve stopped the team and rifled through their minds for tactical adjustments. But instead, I coldly sentenced them to death—for selfish, petty reasons.

My best friend, Camellia, had just died. Antwan was still too little to talk to. And the only person I had left was Kim Soo-Hyun. (Back then, I wasn’t close with Julia yet.)

I didn’t even have to weigh the options between the beast and his fallen comrades.

Kim and Antwan meant more to me than anyone else in the world. Still do.

When the blood finally stopped splattering, and the chunks of meat stopped raining from the sky, Kim returned to himself. He immediately grabbed his pistol, clearly intending to follow his squad into the afterlife.

I knocked the gun from his hand.

A memory from my eye-crystal projected an image: him, smiling with his wife and two little daughters.

– They don’t need you dead. – I said coldly, cutting off his protests. And just like that... he agreed.

We erased all footage of what happened. Told the higher-ups the team was killed by a werewolf—one of two attackers. One we destroyed; the other got away. We even -presented- them with the remains of the beast. Claimed the recording equipment had failed during the chaos.

They scolded us. Gave Kim a six-month salary cut. Took away my royalties for the next six assignments.

Didn’t matter.

What mattered was Kim stayed alive. I trained him to control the transformations—kept his beast side locked down tight. But combat ops were off the table. The thrill of a real fight, the adrenaline—any of that could trigger the monster.

So Kim switched to desk duty.

Too many memories. Too many regrets. Not enough action. I shook it off and called for a taxi.

Time to focus on what really mattered: getting home. The dream country I longed to visit was called Sleep, and I was ready for a one-way trip. That was the only kind of action I wanted now.

I had barely stepped through the door and hung up my jacket when an angry-looking Antwan appeared in the dining room.

- I’m listening.

Sigh. So much for sleep.

Technically, I didn’t need it. I could go days without rest. But even I had limits. And I’d burned through a truckload of ectoplasm tonight. I was toast.

MOMMY’S TIRED.

So I told the whole story again—for the second time today—even though Antwan had already watched the footage. I filled in the strigoi parts I’d deleted from the official record.

Now he was storming through the hall, arms flailing, brain on fire. The house might’ve been quiet, but my mind was in full chaos mode:

- This is it! The Breakthrough! Just like we thought, like we knew!